Birth date: Jan 18, 1929 Death date: Jan 3, 2021
King Hazle passed away quietly with his daughter by his side on Sunday January 3, 2021. King was a kind thoughtful person through out this life. Successful in his career endeavors both with the Army and Air Force Exchange Service Read Obituary
I miss you so much king. I dreamed about you last night.
A brother's memory of King Hazle
King was my big brother. There were no other siblings. I have many memories of King, both from childhood and more recent. The one that comes to mind today is when he saved my life.
The year was 1942. World War II was occurring. That made me ten years old, King thirteen. We lived near Lake Rockwell, a dammed-up section of Ohio's Cuyahoga River. This lake was and no doubt still is the drinking water reservoir for Akron. Thus a one hundred foot margin of woods surrounded it and a security team patrolled it, or they did normally. In 1942 the patrol had been suspended due to the war. Such things do not escape the attention of boys, especially in the heat of summer.
So King and I and two neighbors, Jack and Jim Richey, were swimming bare-butt on a hot afternoon, as we often did. I didn't yet know how to swim. At the particular moment of my story, King was about thirty yards up the beach, attending to a fishing line. The Richeys and I were spashing around in the shallow water. For reasons no longer remembered, I lunged away from the beach and suddenly found myself over my head. I commenced thrashing around, ineffectively trying to paddle toward the surface. This continued for what I believe was about two minutes. I was starting to think that my story was coming to a premature end, when King's arm came into view. I grabbed it and was pulled to safety.
I learned later King had heard the Richeys shouting, had run up the beach giving them instructions to form a chain, grabbed the end of the chain as he arrived, and had me rescued within seconds. I am unaware of any training King had received to know how to do this.
I sat in shallow water coughing for at least ten minutes. After that I took inventory and found myself subdued but otherwise okay. Big Brother had saved the day.
Our condolences to the King Hazel family. Had the pleasure to work with King at AAFES, serve as his VP when he was President of the AREA and run many times with him at Cooper Clinic Tyler Cup events. Really liked King, he was Avery good man. . May he Rest In Peace.. Dick and Gisela Fregoe
